词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Lida Baker: Encouraging English Lea

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": June 19, 2003

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- encouraging English learners to talk in class.

RS: We asked English teacher Lida Baker¹ in Los Angeles how she gets conversation started among her students. The most important thing, she says, is that students must feel comfortable enough to talk.

BAKER: " ... where it's OK for them to take the risk of making a mistake, and nobody's going to laugh at them and nobody is going to criticize them. So the first thing that the teacher needs to do, from the very first day of the term, is to try to create a classroom atmosphere where students feel relaxed and unthreatened. And the way to do that, of course, is to give students lots of praise and lots of rewards for the efforts that they make, to not view errors in language as evidence that the student is lazy or stupid. The first and most important thing in getting students to talk is the atmosphere that the teacher is able to establish in the classroom."

RS: "And then, from there, you have to have something to talk about."

BAKER: "Yeah. And it's definitely helpful if what the students are given to talk about is interesting. It should be appropriate to their age level, their level in school, what they're interested in, what is relevant to them. You know, what's the most important thing to kids in the sixth or seventh or eighth grade?"

AA: "The opposite gender². (laughter)"

BAKER: "Yeah, and their friends. A smart teacher is going to capitalize on the things that are important to her students and bring those into the classroom as topics for discussion. So students have to have something interesting to talk about. Now, beyond that, they have to have the tools for talking about that interesting topic. They have to have the vocabulary, they have to have the grammar. OK, for example, if they're talking about things they like to do in their free time, they have to know how to talk about the things they like. They need the language for saying 'I like,' 'I enjoy,' 'it's fun' -- you know, expressions of that sort, what we call functional³ language."

RS: "Lida, let me ask you a question right here: What would be a good ice-breaker -- you walk into school on the first day, it's a conversation class, and nobody is talking."

AA: "Nobody is conversing⁴. What would you do to start a conversation?"

BAKER: "Well, there are lots of techniques that you can use. Let me just tell you one activity that I like to use a lot. It's called 'find someone who....' This is one of the classics of the English language classroom. You make up a list of items pertaining⁵ to the students in the class, and then the students have to get up and mix around and find someone who matches each item on the list. So let me give you some examples: Find someone who has more than ten dollars in their wallet. Find someone who has an international driver's license⁶. Find someone who didn't eat breakfast this morning. Find someone who has flown in a helicopter."

RS: "So they have to ask questions."

BAKER: "Right! And there are several advantages to an activity like this. First of all, well, from a teacher's point of view, you can modify it and use it at any level, from zero all the way up to the most proficient⁷, any age group. It's a very flexible activity from the teacher's point of view. From the student's point of view, it has the advantage of the fact that everybody is standing⁸ up and moving around.

"Movement -- if students are not restrained to having to sit in their seats, they're going to naturally loosen up. Something about sitting in seats, especially if they're being required to sit in rows, is very intimidating⁹, is very classroom-like. So if you can design an activity that doesn't have that aura of 'classroom,' the regimentation¹⁰, then the students are going to be more comfortable about doing it. In this 'find someone who...' activity, they're up and out of their seats, they're moving, which naturally helps them to relax. They have the opportunity to communicate with one another, but it's a very unexposed kind of activity. Nobody has to speak in front of the whole group, you see."

RS: "It's informal."

BAKER: "They're talking one-on-one. It's informal, exactly. So the activity is finite, it has a purpose, it's fun, the students are up and moving around, and it's non-threatening. And, it helps them to learn each other's names. Because when they find someone who has flown in a helicopter, what they have to do on their handout¹¹ is write the name of the person that has done that."

AA: Lida Baker writes English textbooks, when she's not teaching her own students in the American Language Center at the University of California at Los Angeles. Next time she'll talk about how to get shy students to speak up.

RS: And that's all for Wordmaster. Our e-mail address is [email protected], and our Web site is voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

1 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

2 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

3 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

4 conversing   

v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I find that conversing with her is quite difficult. 和她交谈实在很困难。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were conversing in the parlor. 他们正在客厅谈话。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

5 pertaining   

与…有关系的，附属…的，为…固有的(to)

参考例句：

• Living conditions are vastly different from those pertaining in their country of origin. 生活条件与他们祖国大不相同。
• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school. 视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。

6 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

7 proficient   

adj.熟练的，精通的；n.能手，专家

参考例句：

• She is proficient at swimming.她精通游泳。
• I think I'm quite proficient in both written and spoken English.我认为我在英语读写方面相当熟练。

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 intimidating   

vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词)

参考例句：

• They were accused of intimidating people into voting for them. 他们被控胁迫选民投他们的票。
• This kind of questioning can be very intimidating to children. 这种问话的方式可能让孩子们非常害怕。

10 regimentation   

n.编组团队；系统化，组织化

参考例句：

• They don't want equality and regimentation.他们不要一律平等和严密的组织。
• Discipline without regimentation was Miss Bulstrode's motto.既注意纪律，又不造成一律化，这就是布尔斯特罗德小姐的座右铭。

11 handout   

n.散发的文字材料；救济品

参考例句：

• I read the handout carefully.我仔细看了这份分发的资料。
• His job was distributing handout at the street-corner.他的工作是在街头发传单。